Recently, the place where I work had difficulty with the city trash pickup people. The driver of the truck had to dump the trash twice because they failed to pick it up earlier in the week when they were scheduled to. He made my boss sign a paper saying that he would pay extra for that additional dump.

So, basically, because the city waste management (http://www.wm.com/) missed a scheduled and payed-for pickup, my workplace was supposed to give them more?

In light of the fact that there are no competing trash pickup services, the city has a monopoly on this, we are forced to use their services. Thus, they are able to utilyse this as a means to extort more money from businesses in this manner.

But there are other means that the government uses to extort money from the populace. We pay, through taxes, for the construction and maintainance of city water and power facilities. Then, they make us pay more for using those very services! And if you don't pay the additional amount, they turn your power and water off!

There is no competition allowed here, and no way to opt out of paying taxes for these services. The city simply demands the double payment. Likewise with trash pickup, except that you can feasibly take the trash to the dump yourself should you wish to. You would, however, have to pay the landfill for accepting your trash still, despite the funds that they receive already from your tax dollar.

It's extortion, plain and simple. Yet it's legal, accepted, and tolerated because it's the government.